As part of the AmCham Doorknock Mission to Washington DC, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce hosted a special breakfast event on April 18th featuring Egypt's Minister of Finance, Amr El Garhy. Minister El Garhy shared the outcomes of his meetings with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), including the proposed assistance with the implementation of the Value Added Tax (VAT). During his speech, Minister El Garhy outlined some of the reasons behind the recent currency devaluation, being the need to redirect foreign currency towards the banking system as well as limit what he referred to as ‘unproductive’ importation in order to protect local industries; sharing the spinning and weaving industry as an example.

Minister El Garhy went on to share some of the financial reform measures adopted by the government to reduce budget deficit and to limit expenditure. He explained some of the sources of government revenue and compared this year with previous years sharing that in the current fiscal year (FY) 2015/2016, budget revenues from taxes are expected to amount to EGP 422.4bn (14.9% of GDP), compared to EGP 364.2bn in FY 2014/2015, a growth rate of approximately 13%.

Within the same context, revenues from sales taxes in the budget are also estimated to increase from EGP 118.4bn in FY 2014/2015 to EGP 159.8bn (5.6% of GDP) this year. Meanwhile, revenues from general taxes are expected to increase from EGP 207.4bn last fiscal year to EGP 213.5bn (7.5% of GDP) in the current fiscal year.